“We’d like to know his condition,” Rachel said, in a voice that Yahvi knew well; it meant, I’m being patient for now, but the explosion will follow shortly.
Kaushal was deaf and blind to this, however. “You saw the extent of his head injuries,” he said. “He was taken directly to surgery after we arrived here, and no one has emerged to tell me what is going on.”
Rather than cloud up and rain all over Kaushal, Rachel turned to Pav. “Where did Taj go?”
“He and Xavier had to talk about securing our cargo—”
Rachel turned back to Kaushal and actually said, “Thank you. We’ll come back in an hour.”
“Maybe we could get something to eat,” Pav said. Yahvi felt that they had just eaten, and besides . . . she still felt sick from the crazy near-death experience of a landing, and the smells and sights of the intensive care unit.
Yahvi hadn’t gotten to know Sanjay Bhat prior to Adventure’s launch—for most of her life, he had just been one of those faceless, humorless, grown-up HBs who spent most of their time in the Temple and hurrying back and forth on Important Work.
Nor had they bonded during the four-day mission. Sanjay had spent most of his time in the lower deck with Xavier, again, likely busy with Important Work. Yahvi could not remember them having a single conversation that went beyond two sentences—and one of them went this: “Don’t be such a yavak!”
Meaning, Don’t complain, suck it up, be grateful. It was a Bangalore attitude that Sanjay seemed to glory in. Yahvi had seen her mother rolling her eyes at Sanjay more than once since launch.
Still, Yahvi felt terrible about what had happened to him.
The three of them found two more Indian Air Force guards outside Zeds’s chamber, which was in the back of the hospital building near ventilation equipment that ran so loudly it must have cooled or circulated air for the entire hospital.
This time the guards eagerly stepped aside. Yahvi wondered if they were nervous about the giant four-armed alien at their backs.
The door remained closed; it was thick glass and allowed Rachel, Pav, and Yahvi to show their faces and wave to the Sentry. “How are you?” Rachel shouted.
A speaker on the side of the door burped to life, with Zeds’s calm voice. “Shouting is not mandatory. I can hear you quite well.”
Pav laughed. “Are you being treated well?”
Zeds stepped closer to the door. He had removed the upper torso and helmet of his environment suit, leaving his large head and face pressed against the glass. One of the HBs had long ago compared Sentry heads to “dolphins with no snouts,” which, once Yahvi finally saw a dolphin, made no sense, except for the skin color; there were too many angles and gill-like organs in that head to look like friendly terrestrial sea mammals. “I have the sea, I have nourishment, I am momentarily content.”
Behind Zeds, Yahvi could see a pool of some kind—Sentries had dozens of words for water or aquatic environments in their own language, but fell back on “sea” for everything from bathtub to ocean when using English—as well as a large mat that was probably intended as a bed, and a table on which several large bowls rested. They seemed to be half-filled with some kind of bubbling stew.
“How are the schemes progressing?” Zeds said, a sentence that caused Rachel to wince and Pav to laugh a little too loudly. “Our planned recovery is going quite well, thanks to my father and his team.”
Yahvi wanted to laugh, too. What was the big deal? Zeds was fluent in English! So what if he occasionally used the wrong word!
Sometimes her parents acted crazy.
After that odd exchange, little was said. Rachel and Pav seemed relieved when Xavier arrived. “Sanjay,” he said, in his typically abrupt manner.
“What about him?” Pav said. Yahvi knew that Rachel was not a fan of Xavier’s and avoided speaking to him whenever possible.
“Still alive, out of surgery, critical condition.”
“How did you find out?”
“Kaushal.” Xavier smiled with tiny teeth that Yahvi found creepy. “I had to encourage him a little, to share.”
As they left Zeds, hoping to see Sanjay, Yahvi turned to Rachel. “What was the big deal with what Zeds was saying? You guys act like he was making trouble!”
Rachel grabbed Yahvi’s arm so firmly it hurt. “We discussed this, Yahvi. We have to operate as if we are being watched and listened to everywhere!”
Yahvi jerked her arm away. “I know that! So what? We don’t have anything to hide! We just want to get Sanjay well and get out of here, right?”
She glanced at her father—he was usually her supporter in daughter-mother disputes. But not this time; Pav Radhakrishnan was making a supreme effort to discuss something with Xavier.
The argument lasted only a moment; all their best arguments did. Yahvi simply glared, partly out of shame, partly because she had nothing she could say.
Rachel, as always, played the magnanimous victor. “I’m sorry. It’s unfair to put this pressure on you. Try to relax.” She smiled. “And I’ll try, too.”
So things were okay, but only for a moment. Yes, Yahvi was on Earth. Big deal. She missed her friends. She missed being around anyone her own age.
She wanted out of this stupid hospital.
ACTION REPORT
INS Mysore, 13 April 2040
At approximately 0024 hours IST while on station lat 7°7"5' N, long 78°0"2' E, launch of an unidentified anti-aircraft missile observed from location 11 km WSW.
Launcher appeared to be a submarine, likely U.S. in origin, operating outside territorial waters.
Target was Object 2040-A, as designated by ISTRAC, which was descending from infinite altitude (orbital reentry velocity and trajectory) en route toward Bangalore.
The warhead detonated and Object 2040-A appeared to sustain damage, but insufficient to cause loss of control.
No communication was attempted. The submarine evaded surveillance and its current location is unknown.
LT. CDR. ASHOK SINGH, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS
RACHEL
Rachel’s long-awaited contact with Keanu began with a sharp pain in her head, a throbbing that began above her right eye and spread across her ear and down her neck. It was so sharp and debilitating that it distorted the vision in her right eye and forced her to lean against the nearest wall.
The only good thing about the timing was that she was alone, on her way back from a “tour” of the Adventure crew’s “living quarters” inside the Yelahanka base hospital. Pav had let her handle this issue—“I can sleep on a floor, you remember”—and so he had gone with his father to see about the growing list of other problems the new arrivals faced.
Yahvi had lingered in the conference room to play with her new Beta toy, to Rachel’s relief. Xavier had decided to check on Zeds.
Somewhere within the pain was a voice: “Keanu calling, in the blind. Rachel, can you hear me? Pav, anyone? Keanu calling. . . .”
“I’m Rachel,” she said, trying not to speak aloud. The implant system worked best when the user subvocalized, using facial, dental, and throat muscles to do everything but say the words. Tests had shown that Rachel could make words clear even if the pronunciation varied, so she tried to keep her messages brief and therefore clearer.
It was as if she heard a rustle of leaves in her head, which surprised her until she realized it had to be applause or cheers from Keanu “mission control,” which she knew to be a makeshift collection of chairs and screens on the third floor of the Temple. She had recognized Harley Drake’s voice—that of the confident pilot-astronaut she had known most of her life—but wondered who else was with him. Sasha Blaine, surely. But she could think of no one else, and it bothered her—a sign that she was far away from her home.
“You made it,” he said.
“Yes,” she said, but felt she had to add quickly, “San
jay is hurt.”
“Say again?”
She groaned. The pain was constant, and worse yet, now she seemed to be smelling burned rubber. Since there was no rubber burning in the empty hospital hallway, she had to conclude it was her brain on fire—or her olfactory nerve.
As succinctly as she could, she told Harley about the missile attack and the crash landing, Sanjay’s injuries and current status. “What does this mean for your, ah, mission plan?” Bless him, Harley could not be anything but an astronaut. Mission over everything, even human relationships. She imagined Sasha Blaine shooting Harley a look of annoyance.
“We can’t go anywhere until we know more,” Rachel said, breaking the message into chunks of two and three words. “We’re only on day one, so we haven’t been delayed.”
“I don’t need to remind you about the need for urgency,” Harley said.
“You do not,” she said.
“Apologies,” he said. “It’s tough being so far from the action. Glad you made it. What’s it like being home?”
Rachel understood Harley’s reason for asking the question—it was likely the one thing everyone with him wanted to know, beyond the simple fact of the crew’s safety. But she didn’t want to have this discussion right now. She felt terrible, and she felt exposed . . . as if the wrong word could ruin everything. “We haven’t been outside much,” she said. “Confined to a hospital since landing.”
For a moment, the pain went away. Then it was back, as Harley said, “Losing the link. Glad to know you made it. Looking forward to more updates when you have them. Everyone here says, ‘Good work!’”
Then, mercifully, it was over.
Rachel blinked, then ran her hand through her hair, rubbing the right side of her head. It felt as though she had a fever.
She wondered if Pav and Xavier had had a link, and if they had been similarly affected.
God, what if this happened to Sanjay? What if the transmitter in his head had been discovered or removed by the Indian doctors?
The technology wasn’t new—one of the space communications specialists among the HBs knew about similar implants from 2019, and Zhao, to the extent that he shared anything, seemed to know a lot about their design and uses. And surely the Indian welcoming committee would expect Adventure’s travelers to have some means of staying in touch with Keanu.
This was not a setback—yet. But it reminded Rachel of the risks she and her family had accepted, and the stakes.
It was Melani Remilla who showed Rachel the living quarters. “We set aside four rooms in this wing,” the ISRO director said. “All on the same floor, all relatively private.”
They were hospital rooms, of course, with medical monitoring equipment removed and an extra chair and rollaway garment rack added.
As if we were packing several changes of clothes, Rachel thought. They each carried half a dozen versions of the same basic outfit; fashion was not a big deal among the HBs. No one had tried to use the proteus to make a sport coat or a little black cocktail dress.
The whole suite looked more appropriate to the prison ward of some white-collar American jail. The feeling was enhanced by the presence of two armed guards at the nurses’ station.
“There are bathrooms in two of the rooms,” Remilla said. “They have safety railings, of course. We weren’t able to remove them without rebuilding the facilities.”
“That we can deal with,” Rachel said. “Anything will be better than the accommodations aboard Adventure.” The onboard “bathroom” had been a curtained-off set of covered buckets on the cargo deck.
She wondered about Melani Remilla—was she married, did she have children? Was she a real engineer or scientist, or a policy wonk or political appointee? She looked like the former—a bit dowdy and distracted—but acted and sounded like the latter.
And did any of that matter? With luck, Rachel and team would be on their way elsewhere within a day or two, even if Sanjay had to remain behind. There would be other political operatives, flacks, and wheeler-dealers to confront—
“There are so many questions I want to ask you.”
Remilla had been silent for so long that the sound of her voice, echoing in this empty hallway, startled Rachel. “I feel the same.”
“Which is why we scheduled the group briefings and various conferences . . .” Remilla’s voice trailed off.
“You want to ask me something in private, and it feels as though you’re cheating the rest of the committee.” Rachel was aware that she had the bad habit of finishing other people’s thoughts. The high degree of accuracy had failed to make it one of her more popular habits.
But Remilla seemed relieved. “What do you really want to do here?” she said. “You aren’t equipped to explore—”
“We will be doing some sightseeing.”
Remilla made a skeptical face. All right, Rachel thought. Tell her. “We want to visit Texas, the U.S.”
“That’s what I feared.”
“It can’t be a surprise.”
“I understand perfectly—if I’d been taken from my home twenty years in the past, I’d want to visit. But you heard your father-in-law. Texas and the U.S., they are not what you remember. You won’t be welcome.”
They were about to leave the suite and go back to more public areas. Rachel took Remilla’s arm. “And now, a private question from me to you,” Rachel said.
“That’s only fair,” Remilla said, visibly bracing herself.
“The entities that control the Free Nations . . . how have you been able to stop their spread?”
“You heard Taj: a combination of embargo, fences, and other barriers, occasional conflicts. But, truly? I’m not at all certain that we have. I think they remain ‘contained’ because they choose to.”
“Which leads to, why?”
“That is the single question that obsesses us all, every government, every scientific body. The Aggregates are working on something big, and likely very nasty.”
“What does that mean?”
“The best current theory is that they are building a giant energy weapon that they can use to strike anywhere on the globe, essentially destroying cities and defenses from thousands of kilometers distant—”
“Then moving in?”
Remilla shrugged. “That would be the idea. It’s what seems to be obsessing and paralyzing our military, because they have no way of counteracting it.”
“What about destroying this energy weapon? It’s one giant installation, right?”
“Yes, located deep in the heart of Free Nation U.S.”
“India had nuclear missiles twenty years ago.”
“And still possesses a handful, but they are all twenty years old . . . and likely to be easy pickings for Aggregate countermeasures.”
“So taking a few shots at them would do nothing except get them angry.”
“‘Stirring the hornets’ nest’ is the phrase that keeps coming up.”
“What do you think?”
Remilla thought for a moment. “I’m not sure it is an energy weapon. There is also a great deal of other data about huge buildups of conventional weapons . . . especially land vehicles.”
Rachel found that image troubling, and also strange. “So they’re planning to invade Mexico?”
“Mexico is already a Free Nation, though there are pockets where even the Aggregates don’t go,” Remilla said. “But they could use ships to transport these vehicles to Asia.”
“It sounds as though you really don’t know.”
“The matter is above my pay grade, as they say.”
“Then how about this matter, at our level,” Rachel said. “How well do you know Commander Kaushal?”
Rachel’s experience with politicians was limited to the HB Council, but even that relatively limited pool had trained her to recognized wariness and hesitat
ion. She could tell that Melani Remilla’s eyes narrowed some fraction of a centimeter—about the same distance her eyebrows rose—even as she said, in a voice that betrayed no change of attitude, “Why do you ask?”
“He seems cautious and controlling.”
“He’s a military man.” Now the ISRO official’s expression changed from wariness to something like bemusement.
“My father-in-law is a general, too,” Rachel said. “This isn’t a case of military-versus-civilian. One of our crew is in dire medical condition and we aren’t being given timely information, we aren’t being allowed to see him. We are being treated like prisoners.
“I understand his concern for the . . . safety of Earth,” Rachel said, feeling as though Melani Remilla could do with a reminder. “But we are six people, one of them a teenager. You’ve already performed medical examinations; we aren’t carrying a plague from space. In fact, given where we’ve lived for the past two decades, we are more likely to catch some terrestrial bug.
“So think of us as free human beings you welcomed to your lovely nation . . . to your planet . . . who have certain tasks they wish to accomplish, and a limited time in which to accomplish them.”
“I’m sure Kaushal can be persuaded to accommodate you,” Remilla said, “with one exception.” Rachel had a good idea what the exception was, but she forced Remilla to state it. “He will never allow you to go to the U.S.”
“I didn’t realize it was up to him.” She smiled, though she wasn’t feeling the humor of the moment. “In fact, I thought it was up to you and ISRO, or possibly this Mr. Kateel and the local government.”
“ISRO won’t stand in your way, but Kateel wishes he and the local government had never heard of you, so he is likely to support the Indian Air Force, which in this case is Kaushal.”
“Why does he care?”
“He thinks you might start a war. Given that Aggregate-controlled U.S. warships came close enough to our coast to shoot at you, I must confess that he has a point.”
Rachel smiled. Kaushal was actually quite correct. Well, as her father used to say . . . it’s better to know who your enemy is as early as possible. “In that case,” Rachel said, “please tell Wing Commander Kaushal that we are grateful for his hospitality and that we have no expectation that he will help us travel to the U.S.”
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